Customer Reviews

HUMAN EVOLUTION CL SEE 775055

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In just under 200 pages, JL Bradshaw, an Australian neuroscientist, presents a clearly written view of the evolution of the human mind. No pop sociobiology material here; the book fairly summarizes a large amount of research on topics ranging from the hominid fossil record to the evolution of language, tool use and social intelligence. If you want to get a quick handle on these issues, this book is highly recommended.

While I'm typically not a fan of attempts at evolutionary psychology or sociobiology, most simply being faddish post hoc ideas that are ultimately untestable, this book strikes a different path.

Bradshaw does a brilliant job of, first, providing a brief yet thorough summary of the course of evolution. He follows this with an introduction to archeological research on brain pans and skull indentations, and with appropriate caveats explains what can be gleaned from this information. Citing the b...more While I'm typically not a fan of attempts at evolutionary psychology or sociobiology, most simply being faddish post hoc ideas that are ultimately untestable, this book strikes a different path.

Bradshaw does a brilliant job of, first, providing a brief yet thorough summary of the course of evolution. He follows this with an introduction to archeological research on brain pans and skull indentations, and with appropriate caveats explains what can be gleaned from this information. Citing the best research out there on psycholinguistics and neuroanatomy, he then builds a case for tracing the development of the most human of traits: speech. Due to the importance and centrality of the development of speech on evolution, and the equally important presence of major speech areas on the surface of the brain such that changes in the skull yield clues about the evolution of certain regions, Bradshaw sets a course for laying out some likely hypotheses for how the brain evolved.

This definitely isn't an easy or pop-science book, and it's hard to say how much I was helped in his sections on VOTs and other technical aspects of psychoaccoustic research by the fact that a close friend and colleague of mine does active work in that field - she has explained nuances of the research in this area to me multiple times over the years! That said, it's certainly worth the struggle, and for anyone with an interest in evolution and psychology this is hands down the best science-based book out there!